Random CTA Passenger That Sat Next To Me On The Bus This Morning (RCTAPTSNTMONTBTM): "Oh honey, you look a little old to be in school! What you working on?"
Me (M): "Umm… it's a workbook for the GMAT."
RCTAPTSNTMONTBTM: *blank stare* "Is that like, for college?"
M: "Basically. It's like the SAT for people wanting to go to business grad school." *returns to workbook*
RCTAPTSNTMONTBTM: "Oh! You know, my daawwter is in college. She got her GED two years ago and now she's in college working on her Bachelorette!"
M: "Yes, well… good for her! I hope she finds a very lucky bachelor while she's there."
RCTAPTSNTMONTBTM: *beams with pride, turns to talk to someone else*
Such is the wonder of the CTA. While it may never get me where I need to go on time, I stumble into interesting conversations that are so amusing I temporarily forget my severe awkwardness talking to random, scary-looking, partially-bathed people in public.
Also, I still haven't gotten over my Moday-itis.
Showing posts with label CTA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CTA. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
A Return Of The Work Mule
If stumbling around a train, falling off a bus platform, and getting shit shoved into a sore knee constitutes a healthy return to the commuter life, than I suppose I could say that I have rejoined the mass transit work commuters and gone back to work.
I've returned to work after two weeks off, and I'm questioning whether or not that was a great idea. Being at work itself is fine: I can prop up my leg, do a few exercises at my desk and even ice down my knee when needed, which is all nice. I don't have to do much walking around, and the walking I do have to do is not too intensive. But the commute… the commute is a bitch.
Being on a bus, then another bus, then a train for a hour and a half in the morning, then again at night, is not as easy as I thought it would be. People, I am often reminded, are dicks and don't care what is going on around them as long as they are comfortable. I'm trying to snag seats that allow me to prop up my leg or give me some room to stretch, but there are only so many of those seats per bus. When I don't get one of those seats, it is a universal certainty that a bag/arm/random sharp object will find a way to jab my sore knee. It's just lovely.
Not that I think driving would be much better for me. It'd actually probably be much, much more dangerous. The surgery was on my right knee, and trying to navigate brakes and gas with a leg that doesn't want to work 100% correctly is probably a sure-fire way to end up on the morning traffic report as that accident on the highway causing everyone else to be late.
Then again, if I didn't come back to work now, when would I have learned to use to my leg in the setting that I normally use it? Yes, walking around my apartment or downtown or whatnot provides some challenge, but the everyday challenges are the ones I believe I should focus on. So while this is all quite annoying, I am learning to use my leg again, which cannot be a bad thing.
But that doesn't mean I don't want to swing my gimped knee right into the ass of some jerk on the bus who's talking too loud on their Blue-Tooth earpiece while chowing down on a McDonald's breakfast and taking up an entire bench with their shit. A bench which I could use to not further injure myself. But what can you do?
I've returned to work after two weeks off, and I'm questioning whether or not that was a great idea. Being at work itself is fine: I can prop up my leg, do a few exercises at my desk and even ice down my knee when needed, which is all nice. I don't have to do much walking around, and the walking I do have to do is not too intensive. But the commute… the commute is a bitch.
Being on a bus, then another bus, then a train for a hour and a half in the morning, then again at night, is not as easy as I thought it would be. People, I am often reminded, are dicks and don't care what is going on around them as long as they are comfortable. I'm trying to snag seats that allow me to prop up my leg or give me some room to stretch, but there are only so many of those seats per bus. When I don't get one of those seats, it is a universal certainty that a bag/arm/random sharp object will find a way to jab my sore knee. It's just lovely.
Not that I think driving would be much better for me. It'd actually probably be much, much more dangerous. The surgery was on my right knee, and trying to navigate brakes and gas with a leg that doesn't want to work 100% correctly is probably a sure-fire way to end up on the morning traffic report as that accident on the highway causing everyone else to be late.
Then again, if I didn't come back to work now, when would I have learned to use to my leg in the setting that I normally use it? Yes, walking around my apartment or downtown or whatnot provides some challenge, but the everyday challenges are the ones I believe I should focus on. So while this is all quite annoying, I am learning to use my leg again, which cannot be a bad thing.
But that doesn't mean I don't want to swing my gimped knee right into the ass of some jerk on the bus who's talking too loud on their Blue-Tooth earpiece while chowing down on a McDonald's breakfast and taking up an entire bench with their shit. A bench which I could use to not further injure myself. But what can you do?
Friday, August 20, 2010
Friday Public Announcement
Attention Blue Line riders. If you so chose to stick your luggage out into the aisle in such a way that it blocks me in and prevents me from getting off the train at my stop for work, and if you so chose to not politely move said bags when asked, please be advised that I will pick up your luggage, take it to the back of the cart, kick it multiple time, urinate all over it like a cat marking his territory, then open up the back door to the car and toss the bag onto the tracks. I will then proceed further fall back into my animal state and launch patties of my fecal matter at your face, then point and laugh.
This is your one and only public service announcement on the subject. Please continue on with your regularly scheduled douchery.
Monday, July 19, 2010
I Don't Know You, But I Think I Hate You
Are there any people you happen to see every day but don't know at all? And of those people, do you absolutely detest one of them for what you perceive them to be? No? Hmmm… well then, me neither…
OK, well, that's not completely true. There is this one guy that rides the bus with me every morning, but I swear if we ever actually met I'd think he was an utterly miserable tool. I look at him and am amazed that there is anyone out there at all who could think he has anything close to a passably friendly personality. Except maybe his mother, but probably not. I mean, she probably smiles sweetly when he deigns to grace her with his presence and says encouraging things to him on the phone when he calls her to cry himself to sleep every Saturday night while he sits in a watches Golden Girl reruns again, but I can guarantee that she talks to her friends about him like he has Downs Syndrome or just forgets to bring him up in conversation at all.
I simply can't stand him. He gets on the bus every morning wearing whatever "trendy" outfits some fashion magazine picked out for him with his nose turned so far up I'm surprised he doesn’t trip with every step he takes. I know when he gets on the bus too because the distinct aroma of fetid cockiness and disturbed air of unearned confidence travels throughout the bus as everyone lets out a sigh and rolls their eyes. He then proceeds to find an open bench and ensure that his bags find a way to take up the seat next to him, never mind that pregnant grandmother standing up right next to him hanging on to the handrail with frail and wary hands. And heaven forbid someone accidentally brush against his leg which is extended so far into the aisle it may as well be a limbo bar for toddlers because he will instantaneously launch into a tirade of lip smacks, hard stares and mumbling. Oh, and he, of course, needs to open his laptop immediately upon sitting and get on his cell phone and talk and type for the entire trip. Because any person that is actually that important lives in his neighborhood and rides the public transit system out to Rosemont for work on a daily basis…
Why do I hate this guy I've never met? Truthfully, I have no idea. It is completely irrational, and I am completely aware of that, but every time I see him on the bus, which is every work day, I get the urge to scream at him in some guttural language and hope it amounts to a curse that causes his hair to fall out while he weeps in the shower (I may have watched The Craft recently...). Does he have actuall friends and a fruitful, productive life? Who cares! It's much more interesting to project on to him my perception of his life than it is to actually talk to him. Besides, we don't talk to strangers in Chicago, particularly ones who obviously aren't homeless but would likely fit right in if they ever happened to find themselves in that situation.
OK, well, that's not completely true. There is this one guy that rides the bus with me every morning, but I swear if we ever actually met I'd think he was an utterly miserable tool. I look at him and am amazed that there is anyone out there at all who could think he has anything close to a passably friendly personality. Except maybe his mother, but probably not. I mean, she probably smiles sweetly when he deigns to grace her with his presence and says encouraging things to him on the phone when he calls her to cry himself to sleep every Saturday night while he sits in a watches Golden Girl reruns again, but I can guarantee that she talks to her friends about him like he has Downs Syndrome or just forgets to bring him up in conversation at all.
I simply can't stand him. He gets on the bus every morning wearing whatever "trendy" outfits some fashion magazine picked out for him with his nose turned so far up I'm surprised he doesn’t trip with every step he takes. I know when he gets on the bus too because the distinct aroma of fetid cockiness and disturbed air of unearned confidence travels throughout the bus as everyone lets out a sigh and rolls their eyes. He then proceeds to find an open bench and ensure that his bags find a way to take up the seat next to him, never mind that pregnant grandmother standing up right next to him hanging on to the handrail with frail and wary hands. And heaven forbid someone accidentally brush against his leg which is extended so far into the aisle it may as well be a limbo bar for toddlers because he will instantaneously launch into a tirade of lip smacks, hard stares and mumbling. Oh, and he, of course, needs to open his laptop immediately upon sitting and get on his cell phone and talk and type for the entire trip. Because any person that is actually that important lives in his neighborhood and rides the public transit system out to Rosemont for work on a daily basis…
Why do I hate this guy I've never met? Truthfully, I have no idea. It is completely irrational, and I am completely aware of that, but every time I see him on the bus, which is every work day, I get the urge to scream at him in some guttural language and hope it amounts to a curse that causes his hair to fall out while he weeps in the shower (I may have watched The Craft recently...). Does he have actuall friends and a fruitful, productive life? Who cares! It's much more interesting to project on to him my perception of his life than it is to actually talk to him. Besides, we don't talk to strangers in Chicago, particularly ones who obviously aren't homeless but would likely fit right in if they ever happened to find themselves in that situation.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
CTA Is Fail
One of my favorite things about living in Chicago is the public transportation, and now one of my maost hated things about living in Chicago is also the public tansit system. The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is a pompous monstrosity that is, simply put, a giant fail on the concept of free market/government subsidized model.
The CTA operates on no rules. None. They have schedules that are suppose to follow, but they simply pick and choose when they want to do so. On mornings when there is a -10 degree windchill, the CTA decides that it will run multiple express trains so as to maximize the potential frost bite of those stranded on platforms. Employees laugh heartily when you ask for help, then outright accuse you of lieing when you question the system. Customer Service Reps attempt to charge you when their cards and systems fade and stop working.
CTA is broke. Not in the financial sense, although they like to pretend to be every now and then to get some more money from local governments. They are broke as a service organization. Many stations are decrepit with no hope of being fixed. Buses plug along while drivers are fully aware of how poorly they have been maintained. Employees either are not trained on how to service customers or simply don't car, most likely both. There is nothing productive about what they do.
This all boils down to the pathetic nature of its structure. It's part private, part public with none of the benefits of either. If it were completely private, there would be some tangible chain for consumers to file complaints and actual punishments laid out to inept employees. If it were purely a govenment run system, we could follow proven political tactics to force change. But it's neither, and both. And it fails in all aspects.
I'd love to have the Olympics here, but the CTA would be central to that effort and they are simply horrific and would be an utter embarassment to this city.
The CTA operates on no rules. None. They have schedules that are suppose to follow, but they simply pick and choose when they want to do so. On mornings when there is a -10 degree windchill, the CTA decides that it will run multiple express trains so as to maximize the potential frost bite of those stranded on platforms. Employees laugh heartily when you ask for help, then outright accuse you of lieing when you question the system. Customer Service Reps attempt to charge you when their cards and systems fade and stop working.
CTA is broke. Not in the financial sense, although they like to pretend to be every now and then to get some more money from local governments. They are broke as a service organization. Many stations are decrepit with no hope of being fixed. Buses plug along while drivers are fully aware of how poorly they have been maintained. Employees either are not trained on how to service customers or simply don't car, most likely both. There is nothing productive about what they do.
This all boils down to the pathetic nature of its structure. It's part private, part public with none of the benefits of either. If it were completely private, there would be some tangible chain for consumers to file complaints and actual punishments laid out to inept employees. If it were purely a govenment run system, we could follow proven political tactics to force change. But it's neither, and both. And it fails in all aspects.
I'd love to have the Olympics here, but the CTA would be central to that effort and they are simply horrific and would be an utter embarassment to this city.
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